Police killed two gunmen Wednesday in an early-morning shootout in the troubled southern Russian region of Dagestan, authorities said. A bystander also was killed, police said. The shootout began around 7 a.m. when police went to a two-storey brick building in the capital, Makhachkala, to search a building suspected of housing gunmen, said Marina Riasulova, a spokeswoman for the city's Interior Ministry. As police approached the house, at least five gunmen inside opened fire with automatic weapons and police returned fire in a shootout that lasted nearly two hours, authorities said. A witness who had accompanied police was shot and killed in the crossfire. One police officer and at least two of the gunmen were wounded. Two other gunmen escaped.
